Substation not needed, group says

By Lauren Heaton

The Village may need to upgrade its electric system to improve the quality of electricity that is delivered throughout Yellow Springs. But beyond that, according to members of the Village’s Electric System Task Force, the Village is at no immediate risk for power failure and may find it can continue to serve users into the future without purchasing a new substation.

Last spring Village Manager Eric Swansen stated that the Village needed to purchase a new $3.5 million substation as soon as possible, due to an inadequate system and the need for a stable power supply to sustain growth. But many villagers expressed concern over both the financial and environmental consequences of the new substation.

In response to those concerns, Village Council appointed a 12-member task force, chaired by engineer Benji Maruyama, to help in the decision-making process. The task force was charged by Council in June with determining the Village’s electric system needs and making a recommendation on how to address them. The task force, which has met weekly since then, will present its interim report on phase one of its findings at the Village Council meeting on Monday, Oct. 22.

Addressing the most obvious problems first, the task force identified that a better power delivery system within the village could eliminate the brownouts some utility users had reported experiencing. According to task force member Roy Eastman, from the switching station on Fairfield Pike at Snypp Road the Village currently delivers electricity on two electric circuits. One of the circuits takes approximately one-third of the load, leaving the other overburdened with two-thirds of the load and unable at times to meet peak demand. And with only two voltage regulators, the power that is delivered is not guaranteed to arrive within a normal voltage range, he said.

Installing a third circuit to carry some of the load and a third regulator to normalize the voltage is a relatively simple solution to correct the system’s imbalance and variability, Eastman said. Though the cost of such measures can only be roughly estimated, AMP-Ohio representative Michelle Palmer said that installing a third circuit could cost about $210,000, and installing a regulator could cost an additional $120,000. According to Maruyama, these measures are likely to be necessary no matter which additional expansion measures the Village chooses to pursue.

Having addressed the issue of quality of distribution, the task force also looked at whether the quantity of electricity coming through the lines was sufficient to serve the demands of users in Yellow Springs, and what remedies would be the most cost-effective for the Village.

Dayton Power & Light owns the transmission lines and transformers that deliver power from the power plant to Fairfield Pike at Snypp Road, beyond which the Village owns the lines that bring the power to each of the homes in the village. The DP&L transformer that steps the power down to a usable voltage has a general capacity of 10 megawatts, and it can handle an occasional bump up to 11 megawatts, as in the peak demand the Village system experienced in 2003 at 11.1 megawatts.

Currently the Village contracts with DP&L to provide up to 18 megawatts of power, though the village has of yet not shown a consistent need for more than the 9.1 megawatt peak it experienced this year, according to Eastman. While DP&L could increase the capacity of the transformer to provide more power, it isn’t likely to incur that cost unless and until the village shows a consistent need for more than 10 megawatts, he said.

The Village’s average demand for electricity is down from previous years, Eastman said. According to the Village’s electric records, the top five consumers of electricity in 2001 were Antioch College, The Antioch Company, YSI Incorporated, Friends Care Community and Vernay Laboratories, which together had a yearly demand of 19,700,000 kilowatt/hours. But since the closure of Vernay’s Dayton Street plant, over the past five years the electric demand has steadily decreased to a total of 12,500,000 kilowatt/hours in 2006 for the top five users, which represents a 35 percent reduction in demand.

The village could grow with commercial development in the Center for Business and Education and several residential plats still waiting to be developed, which would increase demand for electricity. But the conservation measures the task force will assess soon could reduce that demand. And given the uncertainty about future population growth in the village, it is still unclear what the future demand for electricity will be, Maruyama said.

Purchasing a new substation would take DP&L out of the equation and allow Yellow Springs to access as much direct power as its lines will carry. The shift would both improve the quality and increase the quantity of electricity delivered, but at a high cost.

“We’re recommending that the substation is not needed right now,” Maruyama said last week. “If the demand for power rises, we have spare capacity and enough lead time that if we decided to we could build one.”

Following the presentation of phase one, the task force is scheduled to move ahead with phase two of its evaluation, which includes issues of future growth in the village and identifying ways to conserve and reduce electricity consumption.

Additional members of the task force are Carol Gasho, Karen Wintrow, Judith Hempfling, Richard Zopf, Pat Murphy, Reggie Stratton, Bob Brecha, Steven Conn, David Heckler and Paul Abendroth, who recently resigned.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com